HODGENVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A group of women who were inmates in a Kentucky jail have reached a $1.1 million settlement after accusing a guard at the jail of rape and sexual abuse.
The former LaRue County Detention Center guard, Jerome Perry, is serving a 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in October on rape and sodomy charges.
The former female inmates at the jail accused Perry of sexually abusing them over a period of seven months in 2018. They said in the lawsuit, which was settled in U.S. District Court in March, that other guards at the jail looked the other way while the abuse occurred.
The civil rights suit filed in February 2019 alleged that Perry forced the inmates to perform sex acts and threatened to retaliate against them if they refused.
“Some of the abuse was apparent on security cameras but no one was watching,” Al Gerhardstein, an attorney for the plantiffs, said in a release announcing the settlement. “Hopefully, this case will push the county to improve monitoring.”
Perry, of Vine Grove, was arrested Sept. 4, 2018, and accused of multiple sexual offenses involving former inmates.
The women who brought the suit are not identified by name in the court filings to protect their privacy.
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